The Giver

Lois Lowry
The Giver - $5.59
1993

Do not read this book, it was banned for being too dark for children. There is no point in telling you that this book is great. That it won many awards including the 1994 Newbery Award and is the first in a trilogy.

The Giver by Lois Lowry deals with many themes that are relevant to American society. The one that I am going to focus on and that seemed the most prevalent to me was the theme of “sameness.” Sameness can only be examined with its binary “difference.” Sameness is the issue discussed extensively in The Giver that resonates with us because of the historical intolerance in America. Lois Lowry discusses the cost we would have to pay if we succumbed to our fears and eliminated everything that was different in our society.
       
What is left out of the society where everything is the same is “difference.” The acceptance of everyone being unique is what is missing. The society in The Giver had the choice made for them long ago and now they live in a seeming utopia unaware of all they are missing. A society that was once subject to wars and genocide due to the differences among them might look upon eliminating difference as a means to eliminate war. Tragically, this is not an absurd idea because it is a very sad chapter in world history where a “superior” race of people decided to eliminate the different “lesser” Jewish race. The holocaust was unparalleled in its brutality yet, if they were to have succeeded in removing not just the Jewish people, but all minorities; then we could possibly have had a dystopian society like the one in The Giver. It is not the desire for sameness that is the motivating factor but the fear of difference and the unknown. Fears are destructive and can be catastrophic when shared by a whole society.
       
The fear of difference is not only a thing of the past; it is alive and well right here in America, in our neighboring state of Arizona. Arizona passed a law last year that would allow the police to racially profile people in the hope that it would lead to a decrease in crime. The Mexican immigrants are being targeted by the ruling white politicians as the cause for crime in the state. All the negative attributes are being placed on to the immigrants and they are being dehumanized. The people are not being seen as human but as a problem that needs to be dealt with. The law has already been repealed due to its violations of the Bill of Rights, but the cause and fears of the ruling majority remain. Lois Lowry places her characters in a society where these types of issues are no longer relevant. The characters live in a world they think is perfect for them. They have allowed the elders to make all the decisions for them and they are not aware of everything that they are missing. If racism is allowed to succeed, as in The Giver, then we would all miss out. The US is made up of people from all over the world. This diversity has been the cause of some problems but it is also the reason behind all the innovation. Different people come up with different ideas to deal with problems and this has been one of the reasons why the US has been at the forefront of innovation in almost every field.
       
The idea that what is different is inferior was passed on from the European settlers. They saw a civilization in Africa that was at a different level and assumed supremacy. The cost of slavery is impossible to determine on a global scale. When human life is seen as a money symbol, what follows can never be good. It took a few hundred years for the civil rights to come about in America. The ideas passed to us from the Europeans needed to be reexamined. In a society like the one represented in The Giver, it would take a much longer time to come about. Since sameness is prized and free thought is not available the old ways would remain. Even though Jonas escapes, we can only assume that the society will change. Memories of past atrocities are necessary in order for them to not happen again. Dehumanization of the people leads to “death” being changed to “release.” The ideas are passed down in the form of rules, in The Giver. People do not question the rules because they are not able to question anything. Even though they all felt that the release (death) of babies was sad (wrong), they did not have a way to change it. They all accepted the rules because they were the ones that they were meant to protect. The people in The Giver have no idea what they are missing. A ubiquitous emotion like love is not missed because they do not know it exist.
       
The cost that everyone in The Giver has to pay is incalculable. The killing of a baby and the emotion of Love are nonexistent, there is only “release” and a silly unspecific emotion that they do not understand. They have dehumanized themselves to the point where they only have value to a society and individuals to not matter. At first I thought that The Giver was a critique of socialist governments but now I think it so much more. It is a warning that what happened in the book is a real possibility. When we dehumanize people we are hurting not just them but ourselves. The people that make up the society in The Giver are the ones that pay the price now.
           
I should stop wasting my words analyzing a book with so many great teaching points for children. We need to shelter our children because these issues do not really exist. Children should not be taught to think critically. This book was banned by people who do not want to expose their children to real themes. This is a great children’s literature book that no one should read because then they might have to have a real discussion with their kid. Even though this book is taught in countless schools from elementary through college, you should still not read it. You should not buy, enjoy, or tell others about this book.

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